


burnt crusts

by neko_lcairw



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen, M/M, a rainy night, what could be more lovely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 08:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21296243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neko_lcairw/pseuds/neko_lcairw
Summary: Snippets of a night in.
Relationships: Matoba Seiji/Natori Shuuichi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	burnt crusts

i. 

  
"Forgive me, Hiiragi, I nearly hit you."

Hiiragi accepts the apology with a small nod and takes a couple of steps back, effectively maximizing the success rate of Seiji's olive-slinging campaign.

Shuuichi wonders if he should be feeling betrayed.

ii.

  
They'd bought pre-made crusts.

_"Joke's on you, we have to use flour to roll them out anyways," Seiji said when they'd gotten back to the apartment, immediately making a beeline for the pantry._

iii.

  
"Quiet you, I can't hear." Shuuichi pauses the food processor for the nth time. _You're the one who wanted to make sauce from scratch, _he thinks, feeling a touch sour.

Glancing over his shoulder, he sees that they're nearly at the end of this one.

He remembers that day. The last day filming at that location and he'd come down with a terrible cold. Ill effects of chasing something through the woods the night prior. A near-fatal amount of cold medicine had been consumed and his face had been veritably caked with makeup by the end of the day. The show must go on, after all. His director had nearly cried, but at least the result was passable. 

At least enough to warrant Seiji's rapt attention. 

iv.

  
He managed to keep Hiiragi from taking her katana to their food, so the cut job is a little more than mangled. Seiji's disappointed. All of Shuuichi's knives are tragically dull. 

("Do you have a knife sharpener?"  
"...Surely. Somewhere. In one of the complexes."  
"Exactly.")

Hiiragi was now methodically divesting a slice of all its fixings. Shuuichi absently wonders if she'll sample any of it. 

v. 

  
The second batch sets the smoke detector off. 

He's seconds away from climbing up on the counter and wrenching the batteries out of the blasted thing.

"I like it like this." Seiji presides over his burnt slices like the mayor of a small village.

"I think you're missing the point," Shuuichi grouses as he futilely swats at the ceiling with a dishtowel.

"Aren't you the one who's missing it?" Seiji asks.

The alarm blares on. In his periphery, Hiiragi is surreptitiously emptying the linen closet onto the soaked rug. He hadn't thought that the storm would make it in that far when they'd opened the window to let the smoke out, but miracles still happen apparently. 

"I like this. Don't you?" Seiji's smile catches him off guard. All at once guileless, lacking all the sharp edges Shuuichi used to reckon with.

In the background, he can hear the movie transitioning to credits - an emotional, orchestral swell. A little too on the nose. Shuuichi wonders which gods are pulling the strings of his fate. Maybe he can have a word with them.

.

When the smoke detector finally exhausts itself, the silence rings in its wake before it's replaced by the sounds of the rain.

In the distance, a fork of lightning brightens the horizon. _One... two... three..._ He almost makes it to twenty.

"Still a ways off." Seiji sounds content.

Resetting his count with the next flash, the thunder rumbles its reply sooner than before, low and resonant. "Moving fast though." 

"That's all right." 

That's right. He supposes it is. Everything's all right. 


End file.
